Previews

BloodRayne 2

Majesco's silicon-enhanced, blood-sucking ass-kicker is returning just in time for Halloween. Here's our first look at an early, early build.

Spiffy:

Good new ideas being implemented by developers who're listening to feedback.

Iffy:

The whole game's in rather bad taste, but that's kind of the point, isn't it?

The original BloodRayne was one of the surprise sleepers of the last year, racking up over half a million sales after all was said and done. That wasn't bad at all for a game that many of us dismissed as mindless T&A, and from a publisher that hasn't been known for solid 3D action games. As a result, the developers at Terminal Reality are hard at work on BloodRayne 2, the predictably named sequel to the original bloodbath. Thankfully, the developers seem fully cognizant of the shortcomings of the first game (many pointed out by fans), and are working to rectify them in the new one. Given that BloodRayne 2 isn't due out until October, they should have plenty of time to make sure it lives up to the heightened expectations.

If you're not familiar with the first game, its titular character was a dhampir, the unnatural offspring of a human and vampire. (Don't ask.) Dhampirs have the powers of vampires with only a few of the drawbacks, such as a thirst for blood, an aversion to sunlight, and unnaturally large, jiggling breasts. Anyway, dhampir Rayne rampaged around in 1935, and in BloodRayne 2 she'll be rampaging around in the present day. It seems that her dhampir siblings have not turned out as well-adjusted as she has, and, well, it's time to just give up and kill 'em. Oh, there's also the small matter of them wanting to blot out the sun with a ghastly technology called the shroud, which would destroy life as we know it and give vampires free run of the Earth. Oh no!

Old Dhampir, New Tricks

The BloodRayne 2 build that Majesco swung by to show us was pre-alpha (read: very early), so I didn't actually get to play it. Instead, the PR folks ran through the first level to show off some of the game's new additions and features, of which there are plenty.

The janitor won't be happy about this.

BloodRayne 2 runs on a modified version of the "Infernal" engine that powered the first game. Developed in-house by Terminal Reality, the engine seems solid thus far, if not spectacularly impressive. BloodRayne's movements are now based on motion capture, lending them a natural-looking smoothness that was lacking before. You can also look forward to a lot of fun physics-based effects, of both the soft-body ("ragdoll") and rigid-body variety. Lots of games are starting to offer such things, but I'll be darned if knocking over piles of barrels and watching them realistically fall isn't still fun. The ragdoll stuff will likely have its best moments in tandem with Rayne's grappling hook, which she can use to throw enemies around like so much dead weight.

Rayne has a chance to show off that motion capture thanks to a variety of new acrobatic moves. For one, she can swing around and leap from horizontal poles, not unlike a certain Persian prince. She goes a few steps further, though, with the ability to crouch on top (which makes her look like a predator, poised for the kill) or dangle upside down by her legs, which is an interesting position from which to engage in gunplay. There's also a grinding move, which can be used to traverse the length of certain pipes and other thin structures. Gnarly!